Six per cent of population are gay or lesbian, according to Whitehall figures

By Fiona Govan

12:01AM GMT 12 Dec 2005

One in 16 Britons is homosexual, say the first such figures compiled by the Government.

It means that six per cent of the population - about 3.6 million people - are gay or lesbian.

Whitehall actuaries calculated the figure as one in 16.66 while analysing the financial implications of the new Civil Partnerships Act, which allows same-sex partners to "marry" and gives them similar rights to married couples in areas such as tax, pensions and inheritance.

Previous answers had ranged from as high as one in five to as few as one in 100.

The Department of Trade and Industry says there are an estimated 1.5 million to two million homosexuals and bisexuals in the 30 million-strong workforce.

With a population of 60 million, it is estimated that the country has a homosexual community of between three and four million members.

The Government estimate has been welcomed by gay equality campaigners. "This is a significant moment," said Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall.

"For the first time the Government has robustly acknowledged the existence of a substantial number of gay people in Britain. This is welcome and long overdue.

"Historically people have got bogged down in endless rows about this with some of the more colourful gay activists insisting as many as 20 per cent of the population was gay, while people who were opposed to gay equality, such as Norman Tebbit, claimed it was one in 100.

"Having such disparity in opinion has not been useful. Overestimates are dismissed as not believable and underestimates marginalise the issue even more."

The Department of Trade and Industry based the estimate on the findings of a number of studies over the past 15 years.

The estimate falls short of the controversial figure suggested by Dr Alfred Kinsey in his 1948 study Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, which found that at least 10 per cent of the male population was exclusively homosexual, with up to 47 per cent having homosexual tendencies.

Mr Summerskill said: "Of course there are some pockets across Britain where the gay population is much higher, but across the nation as a whole I think the figure of six per cent is about right."

A spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry said: "It is to my knowledge the first time the Government has released a figure of this sort, but it does come with caveats.

"It is based on a number of studies by different interest groups, but fundamentally there is very little reliable information about the size of the lesbian, gay and bisexual group."

The Government Actuary's Department estimates that by the year 2050 around 3.3 per cent of homosexuals aged 16 and over will be in registered civil partnerships, compared with a third of the heterosexual population who will be married.

The figure is published as companies compete for their share of the pink pound, with recent research showing that homosexual men and women enjoy a combined income of £60 billion.